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I'll watch the replay and give advice in a minute, but the main thing I want to say before I do so is that you definitely shouldn't think of giving up so fast. No point in trying to help you anyway if you want to just quit. If you weren't great at broodwar (were you?), and only have 60 apm, it's not surprising that aren't doing so well after only 70 games. That in and of itself really doesn't mean anything, every great or even halfway-decent sc player started out bad at some point. You just have to learn that there's no magic in sc, that by being human and having 5 functional fingers on 2 functional hands conneced to 2 functional arms with function eyes and a brain that works etc etc you have the ability to get good.
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Vatican City State1650 Posts
Figures, I'm within top 20 gold if that makes any difference. How can I improve my macro?
Oh, and I was terrible at brood war too. I was D-. Played about 200 games over 4 years? about 50 games each season before becoming discouraged.
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Haven't finished the replay yet, but there's so many issues with your play that even considering what to do in the late game won't matter if your play to that point isn't solid.
Bad macro: You had an excess of minerals throughout the game, and continually got supply blocked. Your building placement was poor and hindered your unit rallies and if you ever needed to quickly go back into your base you'd be fucked.
Bad scouting: How can you know what to do if you don't scout? Use scan, an scv, build a reaper, whatever. You can't know what to do if you don't know what they are doing.
Bad opening: It was all over the place, a normal barracks opening with a tech lab... into another barracks without an add-on... into two port banshee? If you're doing two port banshee, do damage with those first two, but don't throw them away. If you're opening with two barracks, make use of it, either by putting pressure or bunkering down your natural and expanding quickly.
Anyway I'll add a bit more when I finish watching it.
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Vatican City State1650 Posts
Thing is, at my level, like 100% of zergs and tosses went baneling bust/voidray rush. I was surprised when neither came. The only reason I built 2nd rax was because I was afraid of banelings, and a strategy I read here in TL recommended using a second rax to finish the choke.
Was that bad?
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You built your first rax at 11, I think the standard is a 12 rax. Try 12 rax/13 refinery/15 orbital command as a standard opening and you can branch out to whatever later on.
You build a marine first, and then you build a tech lab, why do you do that? Just get a techlab first and then build a maurader, or a marine if you want.
Your wallin is weird. try to wallin with only 2 depots and a rax.
You build your factory far away from your raxes, and then you float it all the way up to your raxes, and then build the tech lab.
You don't use hotkeys, like at all. Try hotkeying all your raxes to 5 or w/e.
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On May 09 2010 14:53 orgolove wrote:
Thing is, at my level, like 100% of zergs and tosses went baneling bust/voidray rush. I was surprised when neither came. The only reason I built 2nd rax was because I was afraid of banelings, and a strategy I read here in TL recommended using a second rax to finish the choke.
Was that bad?
It's not bad... if you scout it. It's easy to tell when they are doing it, if you're desperately afraid of that opening, then learn the signs of it. Don't just build two barracks because there's a slight possibility they will do it.
I finished the replay, and there's definitely more issues to your play then needing to know the right combination of units. This has been said a thousand times by people, but focus on your macro. It was terrible that game, so buckle down and get it solid. Whatever you can do to keep that money low, more barracks, more expansions, more upgrades, those are all key things you should focus on and make a solid foundation.
Oh and hotkey your units T_T Even if it's all the same to one key, just hotkey them.. it helps so much.
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Vatican City State1650 Posts
Well all right. I was trying to shoo off the scouting drone, but it left before my rine finished.
I'll practice the wallin more. Where should I place the first supply? I've been experimenting, but I always leave some gaps...
The factory was moved to defend vs baneling bust, which never came.  I I guess I'll keep suiciding scvs every 10 minutes or so to scout.
I'll continue trying to remind myself to use hotkeys. I did try to use them towards the end...
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For a wall-in, turn on building placement grid. As for depots, I recommend against using them, and for the early game using your barracks/factory/starports to make a wall. It's strong and you can just lift shit later so it's not a hindrance.
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Your split wasn't instant.
I really really think rax first builds (for quicker orbital) is better than depot first. But if you do depot first, 10depot is better than 9depot, I believe.
Scout better with that first scv. The scouting he does is worth more than the minerals he'll mine if he gets back alive. For one thing, you technically should be scan-scouting if you don't know what he's doing, so that scv could cost you 240/270 minerals, and it'll be a while before that scv will have mined that much on his own, and you'll get it over a much slower rate.
Late orbital, even relative to your rax timing. Then you're getting quick 2nd gas, further hurting your mineral economy.
Rofl, nice wall. Now you're showing him 2nd rax if he bothers to drone/ling scout, making it easier for him to adapt to you/counter you. Nice tech addon, you're not using it. Why bother getting it then? lol, you made one maurauder and that's it. What for?
You could've made those 2 tech addons with your fact and lifted the ports to them and saved time. Why are you even going 2 tech port though? You haven't really scouted anything. He could be going muta or hydra and hard counter your 2port without even scouting it. Only thing it would be strong vs would be roach (or pure ling/baneling, sorta), and you're not prepared in the least bit for an actual roach attack, with only a single maurauder.
2 ebay? For what? You're putting all your gas into banshees, so you can't possibly use them for upgrades at this point, and you're not making turrets, so getting them at all was a waste at this point. You need a more intelligent build order. You need goals, need to know what you plan on accomplishing, and find an efficient build order that helps you achieve those goals. Aimlessly making stuff might win you games out of sheer luck sometimes, but it won't help you get good at all. Something like 2port banshee is really risky to do vs a zerg you haven't scouted at all. You should either do a build that propels you further into the game economically, or a build that you can see might help end the game quickly (in your favour). Your build is the latter, except that you don't see that it could help end game quickly since you're not scouting. If he went fast muta, you'd lose outright with this build. Vs hydra you'd probably live and be able to expo, but he'd have map control and it'd be hard to get an advantage rest of game. Your build isn't designed to help you secure any advantage, it's just do or die basically. There are safer/more effective strategies to use instead of 2port banshee that are good at delaying/stalling to allow you to expo.
Your depot timing really needs some work. Just play vs a comp or something, and just practicing making units and making depots efficiently to get good habits.
You're at 700 minerals and haven't even gotten psi-locked yet (you will in a moment though), why aren't you expoing? If you want to be safe, make the cc in your main and orbital it before lifting (or lift and fortress it if you for some reason deign that the safer option), but sitting here not doing damage and not expoing accomplishes nothing. You're getting banshees out, and unless he ended up going muta (I can see he's going hydra ostensibly), you can distract z with them, allowing you to fully secure your expo (making bunkers if necessary, etc). Your banshees should be serving a purpose, not just being made to be made.
Nice ring of turrets around your main, he hasn't even started a spire yet. Could've made several barracks with that money.
Way to let your banshees die, spores detect invisible things, the fact that they were attacking you should've clued you in. Now you have no expo (although you're atleast getting the cc now), no army, and no real way to outproduce zerg. Without a big army or a way to create a big army soon, it's going to be very hard to secure and defend that cc when it finishes. Suiciding your banshees after delaying your rax and cc for so long and wasting so much gas (200 for the ports you're not using, 150 for the cloak you used against a spore, 400 for the banshees you killed like nothing with) that could've been vital upgrades for infantry (or mech, whatever your poison) is really counterproductive to winning.
You have 1k, first thing you should've done when you landed that cc was to make double gas and make an orbital. Why are you focusing on mining minerals you're not using?
Now you're making a bunch of reactors on all of your rax. You're gas limited, not mineral limited, 100 minerals is cheaper than 50 gas, if you think you can afford constant production of that number of marines, just make the extra rax, and put the gas into upgrades or support units.
By this point, you're definitely behind, and you should know this. You did no damage with banshees after investing so much into them, and he's had complete map control since his first zergling came out. You're lucky he's only just now getting a 3rd base. You should be focusing on finding a way to somehow obtain an advantage, make medics and start dropping multiple locations or something, distracting his army away and then harassing, etc. If you just play normally at this point unless he's much worse than you, you can't win. Going even when you're behind keeps you behind.
You need more medics for an infantry based army. Switch out one of those ports for a reactor and pump medics. With the other port, either make banshees for harass, vikings for scouting/harass, or ravens for army support (point defense drone works on hydra, and he's making hydra, and seeker is good if you get the energy for it).
You got a break when he suicided those hydras into your army, you should've immediately expo'd and adjusted production/upgrades as necessary. Instead, you cross the map, making reinforcing impossible, and suicide your army, making it impossible to safely expo, allowing him to just replace any units you've managed to kill.
It's no wonder your macro is so bad, you're not using hotkeys! Use hotkeys! Hotkey your units on something, buildings on another, and you can easily macro and control your army at same time. You shouldn't have more than 200 minerals/gas at any given point unless you're expoing, ideally. Obviously it's difficult to be that precise, but atleast aim for 500/500 or something. 3k/2k is just bad, you can do a lot better than that without too much effort.
I'm 20 minutes in, and I'm gonna stop watching. I feel like there isn't much I can say from here, since this situation you're in only exists because of other mistakes. By simply not making silly mistakes, using a more efficient build order, using your money and production buildings more efficiently, you'll find yourself in a very different scenario. It's not that important to know how to deal with the exact situation you were in in the replay, because you shouldn't have gotten to that point in the first place.
I'm sorry if I sound mean/harsh, but I feel like you should be able to see everything I mentioned on your own by just watching the replay. Nothing I said was all that advanced or in-depth. Simply addressing one or two "what can I do better"s a game will go a long way. Focus on fixing one little thing that you notice in your replays. Getting good is simply the end result of fixing a very large list of bad little things.
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Vatican City State1650 Posts
Wow nightmare, that was very detailed. Thank you!
Hm... After I killed the army, I thought I could go for a killer blow, but I guess I should've expanded then.
I really need to practice constantly producing. I still have trouble on what I should produce then. I'm guessing at that point marauders huh.
I'll keep trying, if only to not let your advice go to waste. Thanks.
A question... for my level, instead of going for unit variety, should I just try for marine marauder medivac? I'm thinking I've been trying to do too much. The hellions seem pretty bad...
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You weren't scouting. The party of hydras you killed was a fraction of his army, and only scouting would tell you that was the case. It certainly evened out the battlefield for that moment, but just killing units doesn't give you an advantage: it gives you an opening, the potential to gain an advantage, you still have to go ahead and seize it (often means expoing or killing an expo, or killing production buildings, etc). Furthermore, even if going ahead and attacking immediately was the correct choice, you should've expo'd at the same time anyway, securing that expo by distracting him with your attack. Best defense is a good offense can work in sc, depending on the scenario. I mean, at worst, can make the cc in your nat or something to lift off later, but atleast start the cc.
Yes my experience is that the hellion is a horrible unit that you should never make. I'm not saying it doesn't have a valid role (if rarely), it's just those scenarios seem very rare, and other units can usually substitute just as well, if not better.
Just blindly going marine/maurauder/medic isn't good. Do that only if you scout that it would work. You don't want diversity for diversity's sake, it's just that often you need a diverse army to fight a diverse army. But for example, if your zerg opponent is making pure roach, doesn't have any other tech buildings, there's no reason to make anything other than maurauders. Even if mass maurauder isn't elegant, that's what you need for that scenario, so go for it.
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Vatican City State1650 Posts
I just won! :D
OMg, after five losses in a row.
It was versus terran, but I hope I improved slightly?
He tried front break but I held it, and he also tried banshee, but I held it off. THough I think I'll try for a few more turrets next time.
I scouted a bit more with scv, and also scouted with a reaper.
I attached the replay here :D
I'll keep trying. Thank you so much nightmare.
http://www.mediafire.com/?zkzkgnwzotz
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Vatican City State1650 Posts
Won again! vs a favored terran! OMG
Just some of your advice, such as turning on the building grid, not taking hellions, trying to use hotkeys asap, etc made things so much better!
Thank you so much.
Here's this replay! 
ok, I'll stop now.
I'll keep improving
http://www.mediafire.com/?lwmziozi1mn
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Vatican City State1650 Posts
So yeah.
I just played a toss that went classic void ray rush.
I scouted once, saw fast core.
Went ebay and surrounded the base with some turrets.
Built a few, then scouted again. Saw he built like 4 zealots.
So I thought it would be delayed and continued my plan.
Looks like 3 turrets wasn't enough.
OMG, he just sniped my cc!
Game over.
Looks like if I see a fast core, I need to go for at least 2 reactor rines.
sigh...
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Fast core usually means stalker to deflect reaper, or to apply pressure before maurauders have slowing attack. Signs of voidray are: you see a stargate, or you see no tech and few gates (less than 4). Best thing to counter voidray is viking, not marines. Marines can work to delay the first one, but marines alone can't completely fend them off as they build-up, and just making a lot of marines makes you fishfood for stalkers, especially if he gets blink before expoing.
Ring of turrets is funny as hell, but not very useful, vs anything. Stop doing it
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EPT
